Critical Literacy/Critical Teaching

This book describes and documents an exciting new approach to educating literacy teachers. The authors show how to help teachers develop their own critical literacy, while also preparing them to accelerate the literacy learning of struggling readers. The text takes readers inside a literacy lab in a high-poverty urban elementary school, reveals the instructional approach in action, and provides many excellent examples of critically responsive teaching. Featuring a synthesis of several fields of theory and research, this book:

• Illustrates teacher preparation and development as personal and social transformation—demonstrating that this process requires changing the ways teachers think about students, language, culture, literacy, learning, and themselves as educators.
• Provides pedagogical tools—including the history of the innovative literacy lab, the context of the instructional interactions, and the transition from a university-based to a school-based project.
• Combines critical and accelerative literacy instruction—showing how teachers can accelerate the slowest developing readers in their classrooms and also build a sense of engagement for students with the social world.

Cheryl Dozier is an assistant professor at the University at Albany, State University of New York. Peter Johnston is a professor at the University at Albany–SUNY. Rebecca Rogers is an assistant professor at Washington University in St. Louis.

“Marcus, a child who became a reader through his participation in the University at Albany Literacy Lab, could barely contain his enthusiasm. “Grandma, you got time? Papa, you got time? I want to read to you.” That’s the way I felt when I read this book – I keep grabbing colleagues in schools and my department and saying, “Have you got time? I want to tell you about this great book I just read.”
— From the Foreword by JoBeth Allen

"I hope this powerful book finds a wide readership because it provides a clear plan for preparing literacy teachers for this new millennium.”
Dick Allington, University of Tennessee

“An exceptional resource for teacher educators who believe, as I do, that knowledge is power, and that teachers must learn to think for themselves before they can teach students to think for themselves. I came away with a wealth of ideas for improving my own courses.”
Kathryn Au, University of Hawaii